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If somebody'd said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the Earth from the Moon?' I would have say, 'No, no way.' But yet when I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.
Alan Shepard
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Alan Shepard
Age: 74 †
Born: 1923
Born: November 18
Died: 1998
Died: July 22
Aircraft Pilot
Astronaut
Entrepreneur
Naval Officer
United States Naval Aviator
Derry
New Hampshire
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
Would
Space
Cried
Away
Carried
Earth
Flight
Back
Looked
Firsts
Moon
First
Standing
Going
Somebody
Way
Looking
More quotes by Alan Shepard
You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.
Alan Shepard
We worked with the engineers in the design and construction and testing phases in those various areas, then we would get back together at the end of the week and brief each other as to what had gone on.
Alan Shepard
But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.
Alan Shepard
Miles and miles and miles.
Alan Shepard
I guess those of us who have been with NASA kind of understand the tremendous excitement and thrills and celebrations and national pride that went with the Apollo program is just something you're not going to create again, probably until we go to Mars.
Alan Shepard
Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.
Alan Shepard
Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.
Alan Shepard
We had some adverse conditions in the '60s, in the '70s and the '80s. The agency has risen above that in the past and will rise above that again.
Alan Shepard
Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again.
Alan Shepard
Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?
Alan Shepard
I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote.
Alan Shepard
I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.
Alan Shepard
We need a continuing presence in space.
Alan Shepard
Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.
Alan Shepard
And I think that still is true of this business - which is basically research and development - that you probably spend more time in planning and training and designing for things to go wrong, and how you cope with them, than you do for things to go right.
Alan Shepard
I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.
Alan Shepard
We're going to see passengers in space stations in 15 years, who will be able to buy a ticket and spend a weekend in space.
Alan Shepard
Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.
Alan Shepard
I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.
Alan Shepard
I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.
Alan Shepard